category: Arts
Cooperation, discipline, ability to work as a team, willingness to sacrifice for the common good (in short, asabiya of Ibn Khaldun) is what wins battles and wars, not ferocity of individual warriors.
The Science of Science Fiction: The Dune Hypothesis
Author: Peter Turchin
Source: Social Evolution Forum
I am an avid consumer of science fiction and fantasy novels. The most interesting aspect of such fiction to me is how authors construct social structures within which their heroes operate. Whether this happens in some alternate world where magic is possible, or “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” the authors need to create an internally consistent social reality. Some novels are so bad at this, that I stop reading them in disgust. But a surprising number of authors do quite a good job, probably because they have read enough history to internalize general mechanisms underlying the functioning of historical societies (cliodynamics), even if these authors would be unable to explicitly formulate these rules.
One example is Dune by Frank Herbert. I don’t know whether Herbert read Ibn Khaldun, but much of his cliodynamics, especially the aspects dealing with Arrakis and Fremen, could come directly from Ibn Khaldun. As a result, he creates a highly believable world (well, this is a science fiction novel), both ecologically and sociologically. This must have been an important reason why this novel was so successful.
There is one law of historical dynamics that Herbert discusses explicitly. This general rule may be formulated as follows: Harsh environmental conditions create a selective regime under which only the best survive, producing cultures with tough and capable warriors. This is the reason why the Emperor recruits his best shock troops, the Sardaukar, from the prison planet Salusa Secundus. Only the Fremen, evolving under equally harsh conditions of Arrakis, can match the ferocity and fighting ability of the Sardaukar.
Dr. Turchin is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. Peter was trained as a population biologist and is now applying his theoretical and empirical skills to develop the field of Cliodynamics–the quantitative study of human history. His books include
Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall and War and War Peace and War:
The Rise and Fall of Empires.
Read more at
Social Evolution Forum
Comments
Post: April 8 2012 12:53 pm By: Harvey Whitehouse
Herbert’s Dune Hypothesis is wrong. But it sounds right. Perhaps this is because we can all think of examples of warrior groups evolving in harsh environments, like the violent gangs of the ghetto or prison, the hill tribes of Afghanistan, or the fierce indigenous peoples of the Amazon jungle and New Guinea. There seems to be some correspondence between poverty, violence, and warfare. Peter Turchin makes the interesting suggestion that harsh environments may produce harsh individuals but not necessarily the most ferocious warriors. Perhaps, but imagine a map of Belfast with the areas of highest unemployment and poverty coloured red and the middle class, affluent neighbourhoods coloured blue. The red areas would demarcate the breeding ground for a great variety of paramilitary groups armed with guns and hammers whereas the blue areas would be populated with baggy-trousered liberals armed only with rolled up copies of The Guardian. Although tough neighbourhoods in Belfast are the niche for warrior groups, it is not obvious that they spawn more violent individuals. In fact, during the heyday of The Troubles the poorer parts of Belfast had exceptionally low rates of ordinary urban crime. Why? Because the paramilitaries were highly effective at policing those communities, suppressing unorganized or spontaneous criminality. This is probably why Herbert sounds right. Harsh environments like Northern Ireland have often produced highly cohesive warring tribes. But Herbert was also wrong because many harsh environments do not produce such groups. A possible explanation is as follows. Warfare is an extreme collective action problem, involving high risks for participants and strong temptations to defect. The most effective warrior groups are those that sustain the highest levels of social cohesion internally, overcoming the collective action problem. Warrior groups are likely to evolve in environments where social cohesion must be strong if individuals are to survive. Not all harsh environments are like that. In some deprived inner city neighbourhoods where there are no well-organized groups, or those groups are hard to join, the best survival strategy might be ‘every man for himself’, a recipe for individual harshness but not necessarily for tribal warfare. But in a place like Northern Ireland where everybody is automatically assigned to one or the other of two main tribes (Protestant or Catholic) group cohesion is more or less a birthright. In tough neighbourhoods like the Falls and the Shankill, this cohesion is converted into outgroup hostility because of intense competition between groups packed tightly into the same ecological niche. Conflict in turn amplifies cohesion in a self-amplifying feeback loop. The result is sectarian warfare. But note that it is not the harshness of the environment per se that caused this situation. Harsh environments are often ones in which survival depends on solving collective action problems. The resulting cohesion is like a cocked gun ready to go off when the group comes into competition with others. So there may be a loose correlation between harsh environments and tribal warfare. In that sense, Herbert may have been wrong, but not completely wrong.